"Chapter 3"

The boy had put up a good fight, he had to admit that. For such a scrawny ten-year-old he had a lot of strength, and a lot of gumption. He had seen such fire in many a wild stallion before he utterly broke them.

The Good Lord had created the lesser to be ruled.

A child so far adrift from the Lord's ways was included in that. He would show this child of the Devil the true path to enlightenment and freedom. No one else was qualified to do so.

He would be the savior of this untamed boy.

~/~/~/~/~

The next time Little Joe managed to wake up his head felt less heavy and his stomach wasn't as upset, but his throat was dry an scratchy and his clothes were damp from the rain that had been falling. He was still tied facedown over the back of that dadburned horse, his nostrils filled with the scent of its hair and his curls dangling into his eyes.

The sun was shining now, its heat welcome after too much chill, but from his vantage point Little Joe quickly realized that they were headed towards the desert and were far from the Ponderosa's border. They were far even from Virginia City at this point, away from help and away from the family who he knew right now must be missing him. Poor Adam and Hoss hadn't even known he was riding out to meet them, and his pa…

"Pa," he groaned, squeezing his eyes shut against the sudden urge to cry. "Pa."

"Your pa isn't here, boy," his captor said, having overheard his weak pleas, "and he isn't going to be here. You're mine to deal with now."

Joe's blood ran cold as he realized as he knew that voice; his still-tender left hand throbbed with remembered pain. "You ain't gotta right to take me anywhere!" he shouted—or tried to shout, anyway, his throat was too dry to make better than a croak. "Take me back!"

"There's nothing but heathenish belief and acts with your household, boy. I've rescued you to give you the chance to escape the Devil's clutches."

What the heck was the old man ranting about? The boy felt fear settle in his stomach as he realized anew what had been already obvious—this stranger, whoever he was, was like mercury, his moods swinging madly every so often; sometimes gentle, understanding… then at others his anger made him dangerous.

Little Joe needed only to remember the middle finger of his left hand snapping like a twig to know that.

"Please," he choked out, trying to keep his voice from trembling. "Please, just let me go back."

The horse stopped, drawing a gasp of relief from the haggard boy, and the old man stepped into view. Tall and thin with wispy hair and a fluttery beard he was deceptively frail-looking but Little Joe knew that his hands, at least, held astonishing strength. His blue eyes, a shade which the boy had never seen before, were cold and flinty. "I won't let you go, boy. Not when I know that you'll only go back to that heathenish household. I'd told you once not to continue using the Devil's hand, didn't I?"

Joe's hand twinged again. He hadn't entirely understood this peculiar man's rants on the day out by the creek beside the schoolhouse and right now was in no particular mood to do so now, either. "I couldn't use my left hand for three weeks 'cause of you," he retorted. "I'd say I followed your orders pretty well."

The old man grabbed hold of his left hand again, jerking it upwards. Joe groaned at the ache that the new position sent shivering down his back. "But you began using it again just as quickly! The Lord made man to use his right hand—to use the other is the greatest sin and is of the Devil, boy!"

'I was usin' my left hand since I was little," Joe protested. "How did the Devil have a say in that?"

The old man shook him roughly. "We are all born in sin, boy. It is up to your elders to teach you the ways of the Lord and lead you away from Satan. Your father has no true respect for His Words if he allows you to use the Devil's hand."

"My pa is a wise man!" Little Joe protested furiously. "He don't hold to any stupid beliefs that ain't even in the Bible!"

"Your pa is misled and a lost soul. I will lead you to the path of perfect righteousness and if that means breaking your fingers again I'll do it." The slightest pressure bent back the boy's finger right where it was still tender, and Little joe struggled to swallow down a cry of pain. His eyes filled with tears as he tried to jerk his hand away.

"Don't! Please!"

Remarkably the plea gave the old man pause, a peculiarly blank expression sliding over his face as he met the boy's green eyes. Dimly the old man remembered a young voice asking the same thing, the little girl's voice raised on a sob, and he felt his stomach twist recalling the confusion and betrayal in her tepid eyes.

He let go of the boy's hand as if scalded, the vision of the little girl gone but by no means forgotten. She would be back to haunt him again as she often did.

~/~/~/~/~

'The old man? Sure I know him." Nonplussed by the three anxious and angry faces gazing back at him, pale-haired Ronny Stewart spat into the dust by his feet and hid his confusion behind a squint. "Been livin' up in that there ol' house fer seven months now. Bit o' a recluse, ya know?"

"What is his name?" Ben Cartwright fought to keep his temper from fraying and was only partly successful. A deep breath barely helped.

"Calls hisself Walt. Walt Sears. Ornery ol' cuss if I ever met one an' not in a good way, neither. Always yammerin' on anyone who'd so much as curse or drink, spoutin' off scripture like he was the preacher!"

Ben's stomach tightened. "Where is he? I'd like to speak to him."

But Ronny shook his head. "Ain't here."

"Where did he go?"

"Ain't none o' my business, izzit, mister? He lit outta here two days ago on that ol' nag o' his and he ain't back yet. Me an' the boys, though, we ain't missin' him, that's fer dang sure…"

"Thank you," Ben interrupted coldly and without waiting for a reply he turned and left the porch with his two eldest sons close behind him. Ronny shrugged to himself and spat into the dirt again. "We'll go and talk to Roy," Ben decided aloud. "See if he's got any new leads for us to follow."

"I should have realized something was wrong that day when Little Joe stopped his horse beside that old man's house," Adam said, angry with himself for being so lax in remembering details. "I knew then that something was wrong but I just brushed it off."

"Blaming yourself isn't going to help any of us, Adam," his father admonished him gently. "Focus on getting your brother back safely." He opened the door to Virginia City's jail and stepped inside. "Roy?"

"Howdy, Ben. Boys." Roy Coffee sat at his desk amidst a small pile of wanted posters and telegrams, one of which he held in his hands with a troubled frown.

Ben leaned against the desk, his eyes lit with worry and hope that the sheriff had found some new information. "Please tell me that there's something you've found that will lead us to Joseph."

Roy sighed wearily. "No, I'm afraid not, Ben. Whatever tracks the boy and his captor may have left have all disappeared. I take it you haven't found anything, either."

"We may have found a suspect, sheriff," Hoss spoke up. "A feller called Walt Sears."

Roy straightened, his frown twisting with surprise. "Well, now, that mighty peculiar namin' him, Hoss." Before any of the Cartwrights could demand what he meant from that he waved the telegram in his hands. "Sears has been givin' me trouble for weeks now. Had to arrest him a few times for disorderly conduct. Even tol' the reverend that he wasn't preachin' right. I did me a little pokin' round to see about the old drifter and I got a bit to read back." He handed the paper over.

Ben finished reading the telegram first. "Ohio?" he demanded. "He's from Ohio?"

"Pa?" Adam asked carefully. "What's so surprising about that?"

"Yeah, Pa, I'm not sure why how his home state's got anythin' ta do with this," Hoss agreed.

Ben set the telegram down, troubled. "It's relevant, son. See, the Sears' family is very well known in Ohio. There's a branch of the family who lived near enough to my father's homestead to know what they were like. I wasn't expecting any of the Sears family to travel all the way out here."

"Well, what are they like, Pa?" Hoss demanded impatiently. Even Roy was leaning over in interest.

"Rough. Most are settled in the Appalachian Mountains in upper Virginia, and they're mostly mountain men. Gritty and tough, my father used to say, but half of them are drunks. They married with the Cheyanne Indians out that way. If it was a Sears who took Joseph…"

"Now, we don't know that for sure, Ben," Roy cut in, trying to settle his friend before he could work himself up. "We'll follow up this lead but it may not be who we're looking for at all."

"I hope so," Ben said tightly, "because the Sears family is not one to be tangled with lightly."

~/~/~/~/~

A/N: I do not own Walter Sears, nor do I own any of the Sears backstory. I have merely stretched the dates a bit to fit the story.

I realize that Roy Coffee was not in the first episodes of 'Bonanza' but I took some artistic license to show the long friendship between the Cartwrights and the sheriff.